After starting the season 4-0, the Denver Broncos are 2-3 over their past five games and looking to regroup with a win before heading off to the bye week. Denver travels to New Orleans, where they are 3-point underdogs against a Saints team that is producing more yards per game than any other team in the NFL
Von Miller, the star and leader of the Denver defense, knows his team is in a bit of a rut of late but is confident Denver can turn things around.
“We’re in a tough patch right now,” Miller said on Thursday. “That’s just a part of the National Football League. Every season is going to [have] ups and downs. I would like to play in a season where we just play everybody and go undefeated all the way to the Championship and then we blow whoever it is out in the Super Bowl, but that’s just not how it works in the National Football League. For me, we’re in a tough patch right now, but we’ll be able to get out of it. We have the players in place, we have the leadership in place and we have everything in place.
Two-time Super Bowl champion (Steelers and Cardinals) Bryant McFadden knows what it’s like to be in Miller’s position, with every team in the league giving their best effort every weak to defeat the defending champs. But McFadden also says that Denver needs to do more to help itself.
“Offensively, there have been issues,” McFadden says. “The offensive line has been bad. The running game, since C.J. Anderson [went] out with injury, it’s been too much for this young fellow [Devontae] Booker. They can’t run the football. The pass-catchers are dropping passes.”
The offense, ranked 28th in the league, certainly hasn’t done much to help over that five-game span and now the defense is dealing with a slew of injuries to key starters including Derek Wolfe (elbow), Aqib Talib (back), Brandon Marshall (hamstring) and T.J. Ward (illness).
Miller is confident his team, led by veterans like himself, DeMarcus Ware and Emmanuel Sanders, can turn things around quickly. They’ll face a tough task in that this weekend against Drew Brees and the Saints. It’s been four years since Denver faced New Orleans, but Miller remembers the game well.
“I didn’t really get to him how I wanted to get to him,” Miller said. “Then he threw for 300 yards on us, too. It was back when he had the streak going of 300-yard games. He got 300 yards on us and we didn’t get a sack so it was a double-whammy.”
A struggling offense and ailing defense has been the double-whammy for the Broncos lately. A win in New Orleans and the bye week would do wonders to help both.
